The weeks are flying by

The last week has been wonderfully and satisfyingly busy. I haven't been biking or playing as much ultimate frisbee lately because of pain in my shoulder/neck/ribs from the accident I had. I'm going to the chiropractor today for one of my weekly visits and am going to ask him to check out my injuries. I'll post later on what the verdict is. Here are some random updates from various corners of my life:

-my cat, Mona, is attacking the other cat in my house with increasing frequency and ferocity
-I finally have a desk and chair set up in my room so I don't have to use my computer on my bed!
-I saw a great movie - "In Bruges," a drama about two hit men thrown together in Belgium and their relationship
-a Viennese professor I had while studying abroad in Austria came to DC, and Mick (my housemate and friend from college) and I had dinner with him last night. His name is Herb and he's a really fantastic and eccentric 73 year old.
-My office is officially moving locations, and I'm going to have to spearhead the logistics of it. It will definitely keep me busy for the next month and beyond.
-I have been checking out some farmer's markets on the weekends - they are so busy here.
-my dad is visiting (hooray!) in two weeks for his fall break! Or I might be going home.
-my godmother and her family are coming this weekend for a visit!

I'm doing well all things considered. I'm really enjoying my job, and have a pretty ok living situation. I hope all of you who read this are flourishing!

bike wreck!

I had my first bike wreck in DC this morning. In retrospect, I should have taken the bus. The roads were wet and I had a late night last night. There are a lot of crossing guards stationed near my house on weekday mornings and afternoons to facilitate pedestrian activity. They're usually cheerful and I say hi or smile to them. This morning one of them said hi and told me to "be careful on that machine!" Less than a half mile after I passed that crossing guard, another biker hit me. He was riding against traffic on the wrong side of the road, and came at me head-on. We crashed and slid some because the roads were a little slick. He got up immediately to move out of the road and helped me up. I think he was fine. I felt fine at first, just a little shaken from the shock and impact. I'm glad I was wearing my helmet (I always do!). My handlebars were thrown out of alignment, but that's easily fixable. The other rider offered to give me his phone number just in case there was any other damage to the bike/me that wasn't noticeable at first. I rode the rest of the way to work a little shaken and bleeding from my ankle and feeling soreness in my left shoulder. It turns out that I probably landed directly on top of my left shoulder. It is very painful now. I've been icing it with frozen peas!

I love my job. It's nothing like I expected. I was basically given a whole bunch of responsibility from day 1 (more like day 2 in actuality) and was given the reins to figure out how to bear it all. I have a lot of autonomy and feel very respected, despite being the youngest and lowest paid employee at P Project. When people ask me what I do at Polaris, I don't really know what to say. There is no box into which my job fits. I truly do a little bit of everything, but I see it as supporting all aspects of P Project in a variety of ways. This includes officially welcoming new employees, managing the fellowship program, HR, ordering supplies (so much fun!), helping to design our new office space, and more. I am doing everything I can to make our office more environmentally friendly. I've switched us to only recycled paper products, some of which are unbleached. I firmly encourage people to print double-sided or not to print at all, and to recycle religiously. It's so easy to leave a light or a computer on when you're not personally paying the power bill or seeing the effects of wasted power. I'm looking forward to moving to our new office. It will be nice to start on the same experience level as everyone else for once, and to be pretty much in charge of the new space.

I admire so many people at P Project, and have become friends with some of them. I cannot envision a job/place where I would fit in better. I feel very at home here, and I never dread coming into work. There is always something exciting going on, whether expected or not.

I've been playing a lot of ultimate frisbee lately, and have met lots of interesting people this way. One of them told me about contra dancing in the dc area. I love contra dancing! I went for the first time this past Sunday, and while it wasn't as good as Asheville's contra dance scene, it was still wonderfully fun and freeing. It was also pretty expensive...in Asheville it's very affordable.

I finished painting one of my rooms - I think I will wait to paint the second room until I feel more established in my house and decide if I want to live there more long-term. Right now, I have a six month lease that I'm one month into. It's looking like it will be all I can afford for the foreseeable future - and I haven't even started paying off my student loans! Yikes! That starts in January.

I miss my mom a lot. I wish she wasn't dead. There are times throughout each day that I imagine her presence with me and I imagine what she would say to me in certain situations or how she would act or look at me. I look in the mirror and see her more and more in my own face. I love her. Her face, her touch, her smell, her hands, her love for me. What an effing waste it is that she died.

i should update this blog more regularly!

But work gets in the way. I find that when I get home from work I just feel like hanging out with my cat or watching episodes of Mad Men online. However, being a structured hippie, the necessity of keeping up my blog eventually wears away at my laziness. On a side note, I was recently given the moniker, "structured hippie" by the executive director of P Project who is very type A and a republican! I'll take it.

I moved into my new rooms in my new house (that I share with two others) about 10 days ago. The house is in NW DC in a neighborhood called Petworth. This neighborhood is becoming increasingly gentrified by young people, such as myself, who cannot afford to live in more desirable parts of the district. Personally, I like it. I live in a 1930s rowhouse which is 2.7 miles away from work. I can park on the street without the threat of tickets or towing! I bike to work weather-permitting, which is a great start to my day and much quicker and more efficient than taking public transportation. It takes me about 20 minutes to bike to work. When I take the bus and/or metro, it takes at least 35-45 minutes.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went home to Asheville for the first time since my move to DC! The drive was long, but without a doubt worth it. I was able to see a big chunk of the most important and beloved people in my life. I'm always in awe of the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains whenever I have been away from them for more than a week. The weekend passed too quickly. I brought my cat, Simone De Beauvoir back to DC with me. It's going to be rough for my landlord's cat to get used to her!

After getting back to DC, I was very homesick for Asheville and my family. I still am. I think one day I will move back to the Asheville area. There are too many important people there for me, and the faster pace of DC life isn't sustainable long-term for me (though I am loving living here now!). Adding to my stress is an increased workload at work. There are lots of major events occurring this month that I am primarily in charge of planning and preparing for. I guess it's great experience...though quite nerve-wracking at times.

I wish I could talk to my mom one more time. I talked to my dad tonight and he zeroed in on a lot of what I have been thinking about lately with regard to my mom. She would be ecstatic with the path my life has taken in the last year. I wish she could see where I am and what I am doing. I think about her and the craziness surrounding her death every single day. I worry that my memories of her are romanticized. I can't forget that for a few years, our relationship was on the rocks. I am just so sorry she died when she did.